My only prior experience with the work of director Seijun Suzuki came via 1958’s Underworld Beauty. Though I found that flick to seem slow and dull, I nonetheless figured I’d give Suzuki’s 1965 project Tattooed Life a look.

Low-ranking yakuza assassin Tetsu (Hideki Takahashi) gets double-crossed and assaulted by his boss. Though his younger brother Kenji (Kotobuki Hananomoto) doesn’t share this violent lifestyle, he nonetheless comes to his brother’s aid and kills the leader.

This sends the brothers to Manchuria to hide. However, that location comes with its own dangers that the siblings must navigate if they intend to survive.

If that synopsis implies a movie packed with thrills, I apologize. While that summary does relate the basic narrative, Life comes with precious little excitement involved.

Which seems somewhat remarkable given the scenario. Two brothers who flee criminals to save their hides seems like a premise that couldn’t avoid enticing drama.

However, somehow Suzuki never delivers the goods. While Life musters the occasional moment of danger, a lot of it simply plods.

This hearkens back to my primary complaint with Underworld Beauty. While that film promised a mix of thrills, much of the film seemed sluggish and bland.

As I re-examined my old review of Beauty, I found myself tempted to cut and paste it to discuss Life. The two come with nearly identical theoretical positives and actual negatives.

Too much of Life just drags. We find ourselves stuck with the dull lives of the brothers as we await some form of real drama at some point.

Oh, we get glimmers of intrigue and a few confrontations. Unfortunately, these fail to add up to much.

Neither of our leads ever manages to turn into compelling characters. Though they should seem like opposites, the movie paints them as similar to the point that it can become difficult to differentiate one from the other.

Or maybe I just found myself so disinterested in the siblings and their story that I forgot who was who. It doesn’t help that a theoretically danger-filled plot eventually revolves much more around trite and dreary romance.

Like Beauty, Life concludes with a big fight. Like Beauty, this action sequences works well.

Like Beauty, however, Life brings this shot in the arm too late in the game to redeem the dullness of the prior 75 minutes or so. Despite a few good scenes, Life winds up as a bland dud.

Tattooed Life appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Despite a few minor issues, the image largely held up well.

Sharpness usually worked fine. A smidgen of softness crept in on occasion, but most of the movie looked accurate and concise.

I saw no signs of jagged edges or moiré effects, and edge haloes remained absent. Grain seemed natural, and other than a handful of specks, print flaws never became a concern.

Colors seemed positive, as the movie went with a natural palette. The hues appeared appropriately rendered.

Blacks felt well-developed, and low-light shots usually satisfied, though a few felt a little dense. Overall, this wound up as an appealing presentation.

Unfortunately, the film’s LPCM monaural soundtrack came with a mix of restrictions. Speech seemed intelligible but tended to come across as edgy.

Music showed passable range, though it could be shrill, and effects also displayed some roughness. This wasn’t a terrible track, but it seemed iffy, even when I accounted for the movie’s age and origins.

When we move to extras, we launch with an audio commentary from film historian William Carroll. He provides a running, screen-specific look at genre domains and the state of Japanese cinema in the era, themes and story/characters, cast and crew, production domains and other thoughts.

Across the board, Carroll delivers a solid little chat. He covers a good array of topics and does so in an engaging manner, so expect an informative discussion.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we also find two video segments. From 2006, we locate an Interview with Director Seijun Suzuki.

During this 10-minute, 30-second piece, Suzuki discusses his life and career as well as his approach to filmmaking. We don’t get a ton about Tattooed Life itself but Suzuki’s chat remains useful nonetheless.

Next comes an Interview with Art Director Takeo Kimura. Also shot in 2006, this reel spans 11 minutes, 36 seconds.

Kimura chats about his collaborations with Suzuki and other aspects of his work in films. Though also without much focus on Life, Kimura provides some good insights.

Despite a provocative premise, Tattooed Life never clicks. Instead, it proves slow and dull, as its bland characters and tedious narrative never engage us. The Blu-ray comes with pretty solid picture and iffy audio as well as a few bonus features. Expect a forgetful stab at an action flick.